71 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
71 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
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I LOVE A PARADE
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By M.L Verb
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There's a parade outside my work window as I write this. Snare drums are
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executing noisy paradiddles and horses are making just piles of work for the
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street cleaners, always the last entry in any well-planned parade.
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Parades are wonderful. It is no coincidence that parade and paradise come
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from the same Latin root word. (Actually, I don't know that to be true, and
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it's the sort of fact I'd rather not look up in case it isn't. In fact, if you
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press me on the point I will admit I just made it up. You can say things like
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that and usually no one will challenge you. A lot of life has to do with
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faking things with unwarranted confidence.)
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Anyway, I'm not sure why parades are so much fun. I simply know that most
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memories I have of parades are pleasant.
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The first parade I can remember was one celebrating my hometown's centennial
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in 1950. I got to dress up like Daniel Boone and ride my tricycle, which was
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toting a Red Flyer decorated to look like a Conestoga wagon.
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It was a hot day and my coonskin cap made me even hotter as I pedaled around
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our town square. When the parade ended some adult handed me an envelope,
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telling me to be sure not to lose it. That kind of order is a serious burden
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to a 5-year-old kid, especially an overheated one who still had to pedal his
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Conestoga wagon four blocks to home.
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But I managed the responsibility and even remembered to deliver the envelope
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to my mother, who had the presence of mind to open it. It contained $5 for
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winning some parade entry category or other.
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Back then $5 was as much money as I'd ever seen all in one place, and right
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away I knew that despite their small inconveniences I would always like
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parades.
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Since then I have marched in dozens of them and have seen many more. As drum
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major of my junior high band I even got to lead a parade or two. (Junior high
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drum majors, by the way, are not chosen for their skill or coordination but
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because they play the oboe.)
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My hometown wasn't very big, however, and it always seemed to me that people
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there went to see parades just to watch one or two of the participants. But I
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never was able to convince the city authorities that it should be municipal
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policy to have parades stand still and have the people walk around them.
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I have discovered that most small towns have proprietary and protective (both
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from the same root Sanskrit word) feelings about their parades. As a young
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reporter I was sentenced once to cover a civic celebration in a small town in
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northern Missouri. In the course of my story I simply noted without further
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comment (the way reporters are taught) an interesting phenomenon: The parade
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was so short that it went around the block and came back by again so the
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spectators (who were lined up along the street in some places as much as one
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deep) could enjoy the thing all the more.
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After my report was published some lady wrote me a letter complaining I'd
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been snide and inviting me not to come back. People are so touchy.
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Well, I'd rather watch or be in parades than cover them. I'm not the only
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one in my family who has been in a parade, by the way. My older daughter last
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year got to ride on a fire engine in a parade. That's a lot better start in
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life than pedaling your own Conestoga wagon, and I suspect she'll always love a
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parade, too.
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Even the Soviets like parades, albeit ones with more missiles and tanks than
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clowns and floats. Maybe, in fact, that's the secret to preventing World War
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III. Surely not even the coldest-hearted world leader could order a bomb
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dropped while there's a parade going on. Maybe as a follow to the Geneva
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summit someone could propose that both countries have at least one parade going
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at all times. I've heard of goofier ideas from summits.
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